The Las Vegas GP had a lot of talking points, but the spotlight inevitably fell on Max Verstappen, who clinched his fourth consecutive world championship. Despite not piloting the fastest car for much of the season, Verstappen’s consistency and skill ensured he secured the title with two races to spare.
Following a dominant season in 2023, this season demonstrated that he can thrive even in adversity and it has earned him widespread praise from fellow drivers and team principals alike.
Wolff believes Verstappen is already one of the sport’s greats even before 2024
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff called Verstappen a deserving champion and hailed him as one of the sport’s greats.
“Yeah, a deserving champion,” said Wolff. “It was clear that, you know, he was one of the great ones before that year already.”
Wolff mentioned that the Dutchman was dominant early in the year with both the car and his driving, and later in the season, it was purely his talent that stood out.
“Now a four-time world champion, he dominated in the first half of the year, domination of a driver and domination of a ca. And then in the second half of the season, [it was] domination of a driver. And absolutely a worthy four-time Formula One world champion.”
Vasseur asserts Max has always maximised his machinery
Fred Vasseur of Ferrari reflected on the difficulty of Verstappen’s triumph, contrasting it with more straightforward championship wins.
“I think this one, he was in the fight all the season,” Vasseur remarked. “He had mega good races, starting from pole, winning the race. He had good wins, starting from the back.”
The Ferrari team principal added, “He had also tough weekends when perhaps they were not the fastest but he was always able to score points, to do a good job. And I think it’s probably, as a performance, I think this one is probably much more difficult.”
Vasseur praised Verstappen’s consistency, saying that scoring points when not dominating is truly impressive.
“The easiest weekend in our sport is when you do the pole position, you start first, then you win the race, you do the fastest lap. Even if the pure performance is good, I think it’s not the most difficult for the drivers. When you have to fight into the group and to score points every single weekend, it’s an incredible performance.”
Andrea Stella: “We are in the era of Max Verstappen”
As Red Bull’s pace waned, McLaren emerged as the fastest car on track but couldn’t challenge the world champion. Team principal, Andrea Stella praised the world champion for consistently rising above the season’s challenges.
“Let me express my congratulations to Max Verstappen. Four world championships in a row, and I think this title confirms that Max is one of the best drivers in the history of Formula 1.”
He acknowledged that having the fastest car doesn’t always guarantee consistent wins, as many factors can go wrong. However, Max has maintained his consistency, solidifying this as his era of domination.
“It’s almost an important one for him because possibly in the past, like last year people might have thought that it’s easy to win races when you have the best car but it’s never easy to win so consistently like there’s always so many reasons why things can go wrong and I think already last year they were overrating driver and team at a very high level but this year when often he didn’t have the best car but what he could extract from weekends in which he didn’t have the best material confirms that we are in the era of Max Verstappen in these few last years and he deserves what he is achieving.”
Max Verstappen now joins the elite ranks of Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel as a four-time world champion. Remarkably, he becomes only the second driver in Formula 1 history, after Vettel, to secure his first four titles consecutively. His achievements solidify his place among the sport’s legends, with every accolade well-deserved.
